Crocodile

Sunday 19th June 1988

I had a hearty breakfast in a Fuente de Soda (Soda Fountain) near the hotel. At last, I was back in a country that served eggs for breakfast. I wrote a bunch of postcards and lingered over an apres-breakfast Pepsi Cola. Surprisingly the Post Office was open (on a Sunday) so I dispatched the cards straight away.

I then took the subway to Sabana Grande, the main pedestrian precinct shopping centre. In the eighties, the construction of Sabana Grande station of Caracas Metro brought more people to the financial district of Sabana Grande and it became a place of mass recreation.

The financial district of Sabana Grande has three metro stations: Plaza Venezuela, Sabana Grande and Chacaíto. This district is the best covered by the Caracas Metro. The boulevard of Sabana Grande was built from the surroundings of "La Previsora Tower" to the Plaza Brión de Chacaíto.

I emerged from the subway in an area dominated by fast food restaurants. McDonalds, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken were all represented. The shops were all closed but there were a lot of smartly dressed browsers and window-shoppers.

I walked west towards the Plaza Venezuela which is a public square located in Los Caobos neighbourhood of Caracas. It was inaugurated in 1940 and is situated in the geographic centre of Caracas. It is a place for many landmarks of Caracas, including a fountain with lights and the Christopher Columbus monument of Manuel de la Cova.

There was a lively band and a fair on for a rally in support of COPEI presidential candidate Eduardo Fernandez, "El Tigre".

COPEI, also referred to as the Social Christian Party (Spanish: Partido Socialcristiano) or Green Party (Spanish: Partido Verde), is a Christian democratic political party in Venezuela. The acronym stands for Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente ("Independent Political Electoral Organization Committee"). The party was influential during the twentieth century as a signatory of the Puntofijo Pact and influenced many politicians throughout Latin America at its peak.

I had a cold can of Cardenal lager plucked from a bunker full of ice at one of the stands. I continued through the huge trees of the Parque los Caobos, or Caobos Park, which is one of the oldest parks being inaugurated in the year 1920 with the name of Sucre Park in honour of the national hero Mariscal Antonio José de Sucre in the grounds of the old hacienda "Industrial" owned by Don José Mosquera. Later in 1937 the City Council renames Los Caobos given the large number of big-leaf mahogany trees that existed on the site since the colonial era.

It is the place for one of the most important collections of ancient trees of Caracas. At the entrance of the park is the statue of Teresa de la Parra, by the sculptor Carmen Cecilia Knight Blanch. One of the most outstanding works of the park is the Fountain Venezuela by the Catalan architect Ernesto Maragall. The fountain is composed of various human figures representing the different regions of the country. This fountain was originally located in Plaza Venezuela until 1967.

I reached the museums in the Plaza Morelos passing and photographing a man carrying a stuffed crocodile. Presumably he had just bought the thing. I looked around the Museum of Fine Arts (Spanish: Museo de Bellas Artes or MBA), an art museum which was founded in 1917, and was originally housed in the building now known as the Palacio de las Academias.

Its current buildings were both designed by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, a 1930s Neoclassical structure and a 1970s Brutalist structure. There was some interesting modern art as well as the usual Catholic religious stuff. There were some fine models of huge black women lounging in hammocks, by a Brazilian artist.

I walked across the Plaza Morelos in blinding sunlight to the disappointing Museo de Ciencias Naturales (Natural Science Museum) which had very little on display. Early farming techniques of indigenous peoples, pre-Columbian exhibits and an array of stuffed mammals are the supposed highlights of this natural science museum.

I walked through a small hippy market and took the metro back to Capitolio Metro Station. I went to Plaza Bolívar and took a couple of photographs before the heavens opened. I took refuge from the storm in a juice bar come restaurant where I sat drinking Polar lager and chatting to a retired Venezuelan sailor until the rain stopped.

Half cut, I went back to the Hotel Edwards for a siesta. At 19:00 hrs. I went next door for Chicken Chop Suey amongst some low-life clientele. I then walked around the city centre keeping in tight to the walls to avoid the worst of the rain.

I finished up in the Plaza Bolívar where the cinema was just admitting people for the next showing. I joined the queue and saw “The Principal”, an entertaining film about the new headmaster of a dodgy American school.

“The Principal” is a 1987 crime thriller action film where the new principal (James Belushi) of a drug-infested high school joins with a security guard (Louis Gossett Jr.) to clean it up. I went back for a restless night tossing and turning in my double bed.